New country, new surprises

Before I left for Spain, my friend Alexa told me to write a blog post about the unexpected things I'd encounter abroad. So Alexa, this one's for you.

1. Sites like Pandora and Netflix don't work here.
But no need to fear — there's a way to get around it. You can download "Hola Unblocker" on Google Chrome, and click the little fireball icon on your toolbar when you reach the site. Hola will then remove the regional block on the site.

2. The people in Granada are very blunt and forceful.
I am definitely not in the Midwest anymore, which is arguably the most polite region of the U.S. Here, people generally won't move out of the way when you're trying to pass them on the narrow sidewalks, and in busy stores they will push past you and in front of you if you're not aggressive enough. The Spaniards in our host families don't hesitate to tell us girls that either we have gotten fatter, or we are going to get fat because we eat so much. Sure, maybe we have bought one too many tortas de chocolate from the bread lady (But really, who can turn down €.50 deliciousness?). We'd just rather no one tell us that.

I've come to realize that these differences are not because Spaniards are rude, it's just a part of the culture. Even so, I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

3. When I traveled out to Central Europe, I never had to reset my watch.
Even though Spain lines up longitudinally with Britain, Portugal and Morocco, it is one hour ahead of those aforementioned countries. In the '40s, Spain's Fascist dictator Francisco Franco turned the clocks ahead one hour to line up with Nazi Germany. The clocks haven't been changed back, but there is some discussion of doing so.

4. "Weefee" is always an adventure.
Yes, it's true, "Wi-Fi" is actually pronounced like "weefee" here, since "i" in Spanish is pronounced how Americans say the letter "e." It sounded weird at first, but now I've become so accustomed to saying it that it's going to be hard to go back to the English pronunciation.

Anyway, most coffee shops in the U.S. offer Wi-Fi that can be automatically connected to. Here, in most places you need to buy something in order to get a Wi-Fi password, which expires after a couple of hours. If there is "free Wi-Fi," most likely your browser will never load and your texts will never send.

At my host family's apartment, we didn't have Wi-Fi for a couple of weeks, and then for another couple of weeks the router's signal wasn't strong enough to reach my room down the hall. Even now, the signal isn't strong enough to enjoy Netflix. But that's OK — I just write these blog posts instead, for your enjoyment.

Basically, I will never take Wi-Fi for granted again.

5. Going abroad makes you very patriotic.
It doesn't matter if people are bashing or supporting the U.S. — we ("we" being the American students studying here) find ourselves trying to put in a good word about the good 'ol U S of A wherever we can.

It may be a defensive reflex, as most of us came here thinking that foreigners look at Americans as rich, spoiled and obnoxious. Oh, and fat. Can't forget that.

Just the other day, I was watching the news with my host family and some segment came on that made my host sister ask if all American kids are fat. I immediately got on the defense, saying that that is what a lot of foreigners think, but obesity levels among American youth are actually decreasing. (And no, I didn't just pull that fact out of my butt — I had remembered receiving a news alert from the Washington Post about it.)

On the other hand, I like to see that a lot of Spaniards are very fond of President Obama, much more than they are of their own president, Mariano Rajoy.

Coming abroad to a country with a 26.7 percent unemployment rate — based on 2013's last quarterly report (the U.S.'s unemployment rate is at 7.3 percent) — and looking at the U.S. from a distance makes you realize that every country has problems that are not conceivable until you put them into perspective with the rest of the world. The U.S. is a huge and vastly diverse country, and therefore trying to keep everything running relatively smoothly is a feat, and one that I think Americans can be proud of.

6. My technological problems followed me to Europe.
Technology rarely goes smoothly for me. My laptop, which had chronic problems in the U.S., fizzed out on me here and was unusable until I brought it into a quasi-Apple store in Granada. There, the tech guy told me just how to shake it (yes, I was instructed to shake my laptop) so as to shift the RAM into place. I still have to shake it about two or three times daily.

My phone has also started to vibrate whenever it wants to and ring even when it's on silent.

But hey, I'm in Europe, so all's fine.

That's all I've got for now, but there will surely be more to come!